CPR Guidelines

The CPR guidelines change from time to time so that the rescuers are up-to-date with the current knowledge. The new guidelines were introduced in the year 2010, the basic agenda for these new set of guidelines was simplifying the process for the rescuers and increase the amount of early relief for the patients. According to the new research it has been proven that hands only CPR is the most effective of all.

CPR guidelines are made to make sure that people around the world are performing the same technique of CPR on a victim. These guidelines keep changing based on the research being conducted on survival quotients of the victims using different ways. The guidelines were updated in January 2010.

The CPR performed on victims by the medical staff was not changed. The changes were made for the victims who do not have any person with medical background around. The latest guidelines set by the American Heart Association, shows that in case of any need of CPR to a victim, Hands-only resuscitation can be done by the people who have no training whatsoever in CPR.

According to the statement published in April, mouth-to-mouth breathing is not completely ruled out of CPR procedure, but the past victim survival results prove that common people can save lives with chest compression alone. The traditional details of CPR such as how hard and how often one should push are ignored. The chairperson of AHA said that through research they found out that most of the people do not push hard enough or too fast.

According to Dr. Benjamin Abella, the clinical research director at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Resuscitation Science, stated that it is unrealistic to believe that a layperson will know what hundred pushes a minute and two inches of depth are. Therefore, the new guidelines are mentioned in the following simple steps:

Dial 911 to call emergency

Push hard and fast on the center of the chest.

Since passers-by might not know how to perform hands-only CPR, they changed this guideline keeping the layperson into their minds. Abella says that CPR, done by any standard, increases the chances of survival of the victim. This, he says, is enough to rule out the risk of losing the victim.

Moreover, hands-only is rather simple to perform and this eliminated the hindrance of providing help in fear of what might happen if they give mouth-to-mouth contact. Thus by avoiding mouth-to-mouth contact, the victim can be helped without any second thought by the bystanders.

This suggestion for hands-only CPR is a modification of the American Heart Association guidelines, which stated that bystanders could perform hands-only CPR if they were unwilling or unable to do mouth-to-mouth. Studies showed in 2007 that eliminating this part of CPR made no negative impact on the survival of the victim.

AHA suggests that it is best, that medical personnel perform CPR in their trained technique, as the new guidelines apply only to the bystanders who might not have the skill to perform CPR.

They also stated that Hands-only CPR should not be used on infants or children, or adults suffering from cardiac arrest due to drug overdoses or drowning.

AHA estimated that 75% of the sudden cardiac arrest cases occurred at home, and thus the new guideline applies: call 911 first, only then is Hands-only CPR.